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Talk:Sentinel Guide (Mass Effect 2)
Personal summary of pros & cons Sentinel Best: The sentinel is the best class in the game because it is the most versatile and useful in any situation given. The sentinel has the best and most diverse defense destroying powers in Warp and Overload; the sentinel further complements these with abilities that disable unprotected enemies in Cryo Blast and Throw. Tech Amor makes sentinels very durable for a class without combat focus, and the unique stun effect it gives when broken means that close range combat, which is normally deadly for less combat oriented classes is rarely deadly. Worst: The sentinel is the worst class in the game because it has very poor direct combat abilities. The sentinel has the worst weapon choices (Heavy Pistol and SMG only) and very low health. The sentinel further has the hard choice of AoE or heavy options for their Overload and Warp powers; either way puts them in a difficult position as far as combat goes- the AoE versions make large packs easy but bosses difficult, where the heavy versions do the opposite. On higher difficulty settings, Sentinels are difficult to play due to their inability to disable opponents before their shields are down. Suggested Bonus talents: *Slam*, Any ammo power, Energy Drain, Neural Shock Slam Slam gives the sentinel control AND damage, which they lack. Ammo powers allow them to use their weapons better to supplement their warp/overload combo. Energy Drain gives them more defensive options, allowing them to potentially tank. Neural shock allows them to better fight difficult organic foes like Krogan and the like. 20:32, February 9, 2010 (UTC) Defenses stack? I was under the impression that defensive powers didn't stack; Tech Armor and Geth Shield Boost would not both give a bonus. Can anyone confirm/deny? 05:41, February 19, 2010 (UTC) I haven't tried Tech Armor and Geth Shield Boost or Armor and Fortificatin yet but i'm fairly sure Barrier and Armor don't stack.Pigrum 19:08, February 19, 2010 (UTC) After some testing it's safe to say Barrier, Geth Shield and Fortification do stack with Tech Armor, but only as far as numbers go.The armor's animation will override that of the others.With all upgrades purchased, one of these 3 effects on and armor on, shields can go up to 900.I think that's the most possible. Pigrum 15:21, February 27, 2010 (UTC) Bonus abilities statistical comparison This is mainly a question of bonus abilities, so I would prefer a very statistical, straightforward answer if possible (which I know is not very likely). If detonated, Heavy Warp does much more damage than Heavy Reave, so is Reave even worth it? Or should a power that can be detonated picked up as a bonus power to abuse Warp's detonation? If anyone has any idea, please let me know and post the info on the page.Wooooood 05:22, March 5, 2010 (UTC) :Reave heals your health.but I recommend Warp Ammo because is add +50% to all defencesIcemoomoo 20:05, March 10, 2010 (UTC) ::Not *all* defenses. It boosts against barrier, armor and health, but not shields. Also, you only get 50% if you use Heavy Warp Ammo; if you choose Squad Ammo (which seems to be a good idea on the harder difficulties) it's only 35%. That said, you're right, Reave is mostly pointless. Even if it is slightly better than Warp, you're sacrificing your bonus power for a really minor improvement on a class power. The only argument I can see for Reave is that it would allow you to drop Warp entirely, and therefore you could remove the need to put two ranks in Throw. By doing so, you could do an optimal point distribution, with five powers maxed out, one power untrained (Warp) and one power at rank 1. But given the limited utility of Cryo Blast on higher difficulties, and the fact that you don't need to optimize on lower difficulties, it's still a poor trade-off for the dubious advantage of not being left with any unspent points at level 30. ShadowRanger 20:25, March 10, 2010 (UTC) Redundant with Sentinel information Most of the information here seems redundant to, or more appropriate in, the Sentinel article. The other guides provide suggestions for which powers are most effective; while the distinction is mostly irrelevant at Normal difficulty (which trained monkeys could complete with sub-optimal point buys given practice), the guide should really provide some guidance on effectiveness at Hardcore and/or Insanity. Just describing the powers isn't really helpful. I say this as someone trying out Insanity for the first time with a Sentinel. I have a vague idea of what works, and Retrain is an option (once I get past the damn Horizon fight which I'm currently stuck in), but I'd love to see some comparisons of which powers work best, and which evolved option is better. It's particularly critical for the Sentinel; on most other classes I can spend the 51 points well without thinking about it too much, as there is usually at least one junk skill (IMO, cryo related stuff, particularly on Hardcore/Insanity) and at least one skill that doesn't benefit much from additional ranks or is used too infrequently to buy it up on your main character (IMO, AI Hacking can be saved for NPCs, and Pull rarely benefits from more than one rank). But for the Sentinel on Insanity, Overload and Warp seem to be bread-and-butter, and you need two ranks of Throw to get Warp. Tech Armor, Defender and your Bonus skill are also frequently critical. Which of course means that even if you drop Cryo Blast, the required second rank in Throw means you can't evolve all of your "good" powers. Basically, I'm stuck trying to decide whether to skip the final rank of Overload, Warp or Warp Ammo (my chosen bonus skill), whether to go for the Area or Heavy form of Overload or Warp (if I evolve them), which version of evolved Tech Armor works better, etc. I'd love it if the article contained some advice from Insanity veterans, and if they can't agree, if they'd discuss it here. Similarly, the purely descriptive info that provides no actual guidance could be scrapped, or moved to either the Sentinel page or the relevant power page (if it isn't there already). ShadowRanger 18:24, March 5, 2010 (UTC) :To start the discussion, I'm going to give my personal opinion, based on my experience to date on Insanity: ::Throw 2 (the second rank is pointless, but you need it to get Warp, and having some Throw is helpful for finishing off Husks once you've stripped their armor) ::Warp 3 (if boosted to 4, evolve to Heavy Warp) :::Since most enemies have defenses, you're not able to use Pull as often, so you have less effects to detonate, and unless you drop defenses on multiple enemies at once, the blast won't affect nearby protected targets anyway. Thus, you may as well go for the increased direct damage if you're going to evolve it anyway. ::Tech Armor 4 (evolve to Power Armor) :::This is a close call. Assault armor effectively gives you +125% shields (+75, then +50 when your shields go down). But the blast effect rarely matters (for the same reasons given for Warp, plus the fact that getting close enough for it to reach enemies is frequently suicidal), and even if your shields are restored to 50%, you still have to reactivate Tech Armor, costing you precious cooldown time. The extra 25% defense from Power Armor doesn't have that cost, so you're spending less time in cooldown. And since Warp and Overload are your bread-and-butter, the bonus damage is really useful. ::Overload 4 (haven't decided which evolved version is better, though I think either is better than either Warp 4 option. Optionally, leave at 3 and boost Warp to 4) :::Unlike lower difficulties, you'll be using this a *lot*. Beyond the synthetics, virtually every Blue Suns merc and half the Eclipse has shields (the other half has barriers), so this will come up a lot. When you fight weak synthetics, they often cluster, which argues for Area Overload. On the other hand, the strong synthetics are *really* strong and make some of the hardest fights in the game, and Heavy Overload makes a difference there (since it's a +25% to damage to the target). Of course, in Tali and Legion's loyalty missions, you fight moderately tough (Hunters) and really tough (Primes) synthetics surrounded by several weaker synthetics. I haven't played through those missions yet, so I can't give an informed opinion; I suspect Area is slightly better, since you do 80% of Heavy damage to the main guy, while doing the same to anything else in range, but that's a guess. ::Cryo Blast 1 :::Dump point. With one power at 2, one at 3, and 4 at 4, you've used 49 points, and you get 51 by level 30. You can't improve any other power, so you may as well put a point here and use it on those occasions where a tough enemy has its defenses dropped (and isn't a Husk that you can dispatch faster with Throw). Particularly helpful against krogan, varren and FENRIS mechs (that is, anything likely to charge you), but only slightly more effective than just throwing them away. ::Defender 4 (evolve to Guardian) :::Roughly working out the numbers, with maxed out Tech/Biotic upgrades, active Power Armor and a Heavy evolved Warp or Overload, each use would do 360 points of damage as a Raider (200 * 1 + .5 + .15 + .15), or 330 as a Guardian. But the Guardian's cooldown reduction (combined with the Tech cooldown upgrade) means the power requires a 3 second cooldown instead of a 3.6 second cooldown. Thus the DPS of the Raider is 360/3.6, or 100 DPS, while the Guardian is 330/3.0, or 110 DPS. Combined with the faster cooldown on restarting your Tech Armor, the flexibility of being able to spread your damage around a bit more, and the boost to health, and Guardian ekes out a win. The Paragon/Renegade boost is gravy; for those who aren't obsessive about boosting their scores it may help, but if you're playing Insanity, you probably know what you need to do, and the extra boost is meaningless. ::Bonus Power: Warp Ammo 4 (evolve to Squad Warp Ammo, or drop the final point to boost Warp) :::Choosing an ammo power is almost a no brainer. You've already got Tech Armor, so you don't need Barrier/Geth Shielding/Fortification. You've got Warp and Overload, so Reave and Energy Drain are mostly redundant, and most other active powers will just steal cooldown from them. And you don't have any ammo powers, so you're not passing up a class ammo power to get Warp Ammo. :::As for Squad over Heavy, in my experience, your team on Insanity is usually going to feature Miranda, due to the need for more Warp and Overload and her weapon damage boost. Since Miranda lacks an ammo power, choosing Squad Warp Ammo means at least two people in your party will get a +35% they would otherwise have lacked, instead of just one (you). And on the Collector missions, even companions with their own ammo powers are better off using Warp Ammo. You're not shooting as often as your teammates anyway (since you've got to maneuver more to draw fire, line up Warp/Overload, etc.), so providing the boost teamwide is a good idea. :All that said, I'm not sure of most of this. I'm fairly confident in my analysis of which Defender power to evolve, and the need for Warp and Overload seems obvious. On a lower difficulty, boosting Warp to 4 and leaving Overload at 3 makes more sense, since the Warp blast will actually hurt nearby enemies and most non-synthetic targets don't have shields to Overload, but on higher difficulties, common organic enemies have shields, and they seem to have a lot more shielding than health, so Overload jumps to the top. But I'd love to hear from Insanity vets to hear if my educated guesses actually pan out later on (as noted, I'm nearly done with Horizon, but that's it). I'd also like to know opinions on heavy weapons and bonus weapon. I generally avoid using my heavy weapon outside of the "boss fight" of each level, and even then, I only use it for really tough fights. I used the missile launcher to finish Grunt's recruitment mission (a YMIR, plus krogan, plus a crazy lady with a grenade launcher was too much without it), but aside from that, once I got the Cain (aka "mini-nuke launcher") it's the only thing I've ever brought along, and I only used it to rapidly end the Garrus recruitment mission fight that I found tough even on Normal difficulty (and I intend to use it on the Praetorian on Horizon if I ever get that far). For bonus weapon I'm torn between assault rifle and sniper rifle. Shotgun is suicidal, but deciding between extending my range with a moderate damage boost (sniper) or a major damage and ammo capacity boost (assault rifle) is hard to do. ShadowRanger 18:24, March 5, 2010 (UTC) :: After reading this, it made me kind of wonder, as a Sentinel do you ever get to take advantage of the blast from losing your tech armor, or do you never get close enough, because like you said, it's suicidal? One of the main reasons I just started a Sentinel was to be in my enemies face, taking in a shotgun as my extra weapon, knocking down everything around me and blasting every that stays up. But if this is the case, where I'll never get close enough, then it really makes me wonder about the fun of insanity at all. If close combat is all but impossible to survive on insanity, then really the only thing to do in the game is take the sniper on the collector ship or maybe the assault rifle for the ammo, and then stay the hell back. I recently flipped to casual to redo the final mission without anyone dying and all the collectors died with a single incinerate from my infiltrator, so I'm wondering, is there a balance? What difficulty would I be able to take advantage of my class' abilities without having to be overly cautious? :: In my opinion (based on experience gained through four Hardcore runs and a partial one on Insanity - all on different classes) is that you shouldn't go above Veteran. Hardcore and above is an exercise in keepaway tactics - engaging at maximum range when possible and staying mobile and using cover a LOT in more restricted areas. Most attacks tear down your defenses really quickly, and being in melee range of a krogan or more than one husk typically ends in "Critical Mission Failure." Gutsier and/or more skilled players than me might have different results of course (there's several out there who run first-playthrough Vanguards on Insanity) but I'm assuming an average (or even below-average) level of skill. Derint 04:52, March 7, 2010 (UTC) :: Thanks, I'd like to think I'm slightly above average but I have no way of really knowing. I'm going to give insanity a shot on the sentinel (even though it's first playthrough), and if it ends up being too difficult maybe I'll take the sniper or assault rifle and stick with it on one file and make another save where I take the shotgun and drop to veteran. I'll just have to see, thanks for the input though it's been really helpful. :: P.S. I realized I forgot my signature in my past post, so here it is for both Wooooood 06:29, March 7, 2010 (UTC) :: You're welcome. Couple of other pieces of (potentially useless) opinionating: on Insanity, sniper rifles seem to work best with classes capable of bullet-time during sniper zoom (inherent Infiltrator-Assassin ability or Soldier Adrenaline Rush) and/or large bonuses to weapon damage (Infiltrator Cloak and Soldier damage boosts). Also, there seems to be a bug (on PC at least) where using a power while a sniper rifle is readied forces a zoom-in when the power fires off. Just thought I'd mention it, although you most likely have experienced it seeing as how you've run an Infiltrator already. Derint 17:53, March 7, 2010 (UTC) : That bug does exist on the 360 as well but it's relatively harmless. That's a good point, snipers are really only outstanding with the slowdown, especially on higher difficulties. One of the main reasons I wanted to play the Sentinel was to use the DLC Eviscerator shotgun with my armor up, but I'll just have to see how it plays out. I think if I max my tech armor and class power early in the game I'll be able to take more advantage of the close combat. I may have to try Geth shield boost or fortification though to see if either one allows close combat with the Sentinel. Wooooood 19:40, March 7, 2010 (UTC) ::I did manage to finally vanquish Horizon (I was out of town for a few days, or I would have done it sooner). My problem wasn't the Praetorian, but the last group of enemies before the Praetorian (using the entrance as a reference, IIRC, a group from the far right corner, followed by husks from the center-left and then multiple waves from the near left). Finishing off the first group and the husks was a matter of hiding behind the cover in the far left corner, but I was having a hard time with the waves after the husks. Eventually got lucky and found a crate to hide behind where I could draw fire while manually deploying companion attacks (they stayed behind in the original cover). By taking cover on the narrow side of the crate, the extra depth prevented Harbinger's "blast you out of cover" attack from working, and the AI was too dumb to rush me. I just had to time the companion attacks precisely for when the non-Harbinger enemies popped out of cover. The Praetorian was easy by comparison; I just walked behind cover while the Cain charged and popped out just before it fired. Then I ran around the field, keeping my companions close and the Praetorian at range with cover in the way until we finished off the recharged barrier and the remaining 25% of its armor. ::That said, popping out of cover for more than about two seconds, even at medium-long range (about half the length of the area) was still pretty nasty. I had rank 3 in Tech Armor and Defender, plus two ranks each in every skill but Cryo Blast (maybe only one rank in Warp Ammo, not sure), and I had Miranda and Grunt in the party (Miranda with the evolved party power that boosts weapon damage). Every available upgrade to health and weapons had been researched or bought. Despite that, any attempt to close the distance always ended badly, usually getting damaged a little too much while popping up to fire, then getting knocked out of cover and shot to death before the shields recharged or my cooldown finished (which would allow another Tech Armor). ::Someone with a *lot* more skill in circle-strafing might be able to do it, but I'm pessimistic on using the Sentinel + Shotgun combo on Insanity. The Eviscerator makes it possible (since you'll be able to fight more effectively at range), but I still think you're better off with an Assault Rifle. I'm leaning towards Assault Rifle right now over the Sniper Rifle (despite not being able to test it yet), if only because shields and barriers seem to crop up a *lot* more than armor. Aside from Husks, non-boss humanoids (organic and synthetic) seem to rely on shields or barriers. Armor only shows up on bosses and husks (and a few non-humanoid organics), and using a sniper rifle on Husks is massive overkill. As such, the sniper rifle's bonus vs. armor is less useful, and since Sentinels don't have the Infiltrator's "sniper time" or the Soldier's Adrenaline Rush, you're not going to get nearly enough headshots to make up for it (enemies seem to move more on Insanity). As such, I'd have to go with Assault Rifles or the Eviscerator, to give you decent medium range weaponry with a bonus vs. shields/barriers. Given that the Tempest is already pretty good at close range shield/barrier stripping, the general utility of the Assault Rifle seems to win out. Of course, I have the Collector Assault Rifle, which seems to be the best rifle available (same accuracy, if lower DPS than the Vindicator, but way more ammo and no refire delay); not sure if the Eviscerator would win out for those without the Collector's Edition. ShadowRanger 18:38, March 10, 2010 (UTC) :: My main problem with Horizon was the first wave with the twinned Scions and the Husk waves (note however that I'm playing a Soldier). Took me forever to get past that one. As for non-Revenant ARs, the Geth Pulse Rifle is pretty nasty in its own right - although you'll only get it AFTER Horizon since you get it during Tali's recruitment mission. The biggest plus apart from its huge heatsink capacity is the fact that you can get it without needing the Collector's Edition - if you're playing on Insanity, you'll get it when you finish Haestrom. And it's the same type of AR as the Collector rifle - a rapid-firing shield-shredding weapon that runs a close second to the Revenant, especially if you take an ammo bonus power. Btw, I don't have the guts to try Insanity on anything other than a maxed-out New Game+ character, lol. Derint 01:18, March 11, 2010 (UTC) :::Yeah, I just picked up the Geth Rifle. Statistically, according to the wiki, it's better than the Collector assault rifle (which doesn't actually have a special shield bonus, and does the same damage as the Avenger, it's just higher accuracy and lower recoil). I'd forgotten about the Geth Rifle; I played her mission on hardcore once and either it didn't drop or I'm completely blind. Either way, it's a nice bonus now; +10% overall damage, with an additional boost to shields/barriers (in exchange for a drop on armor) makes it fit the Insanity pattern of "ubiquitous shields/barriers, infrequent armor" pretty darn well. ShadowRanger 12:34, March 11, 2010 (UTC) ::::Okay, having played almost to the end (about to start Suicide mission) I need to say the following: ::::#I was totally wrong on bonus weapon. Since the Cain is needed for the big bosses, you will need a decent long range, relatively powerful weapon to fill the heavy weapon role on occasion. I ended up taking the sniper rifle (after playing around with different options on the god-awful tough battle on the derelict collector ship). The assault rifles just didn't provide enough benefit over the Tempest when fighting the derelict collector ship battle. While the collector ship battle is nigh impossible regardless of bonus weapon, later missions make the sniper rifle shine. In particular, every mission where you face two YMIRs or two Scions at the same time. YMIRs are always tough (constantly firing with either machine gun or missile launcher), but stripping shields with the Tempest, then finishing them off with Viper shots and Overload works well. The twin Scion fights on the derelict reaper go from "nigh impossible" to "easier than average" with the Viper. You just run backwards, killing off all the husks with rapid-fire Reave/Warp + Throw/Cryo/Concussive Shots, and when they are finished off, sniping the Scions from a long way away is trivial. Yes, lacking slowdown during sniping is annoying, but when I was resorting to the sniper rifle, I was usually targeting a really big target that didn't flinch when hit, so with a little practice, I'd get over half my shots to hit the head, with a 10% or less miss rate. ::::#Overload (Area) is the better option; in particular, it makes fights against Blue Suns and the geth-centric loyalty missions much easier. The Legion loyalty mission basically turned into: Shepard strips shields from a group of geth, Tali or Legion hack the strongest unshielded target, geth turn on each other, repeat. ::::#Retraining to four ranks in Warp (Heavy) from four ranks in Overload (Area) is worth it for the Collector and husk missions; on the derelict reaper the husks have just enough armor to resist a fully upgraded level 3 warp, while heavy warp completely removes the armor all in one go. ::::#Retraining to Squad AP ammo is a good idea on geth missions; not necessary, but if you've got the eezo to spare, it can make a difference ::::#I was wrong to discount the usefulness of the blast from Tech Armor. With Area Overload, you'll be creating groups of unshielded enemies that are susceptible to the force of the blast. More importantly, on the derelict reaper, Samara's Area Reave will *almost* remove the armor from a large group of husks. If you are careful to strip the last little bit, you don't need to worry about the husks as much. I was five seconds away from destroying the reaper's core, surrounded by slightly damaged husks, and about to die. I had Samara target the center of the pack with Area Reave, and a second later my shields went down, launching all the now unprotected husks into the air and insta-killing them. Beautiful. Of course, since husks will generally be pretty close to you if your shields go down, Power Armor is just as good as Assault for that purpose. ::::#Similarly, Cryo blast isn't totally worthless once you've got Area Overload. While Throw is just as good at temporarily disabling enemies, the fact that frozen targets stay upright and take more damage means it's easier to finish them off. Not worth investing more than one point, but possible worth investing in before level 29. ::::#Guardian was definitely worth it. Even with it I was stymied by the cooldown, without it I would not have been able to fire off powers quick enough to stem the flow of husks. ::::#Maybe it was just luck, but the Geth Pulse Rifle seemed to be a piece of crap. My buddies tended to do much better with the Collector Assault Rifle, even though this wiki says it does less DPS, and that the Pulse Rifle should be better against shields/barriers. ::::#While the Miranda/Grunt tag team is critical early on, once you've passed the Collector Ship (maybe as early as post-Horizon) you can start choosing companions to target the mission. Grunt remains a *really* good option due to his absurd durability, but if your enemies have fairly homogeneous defenses (read: you'll be using either Warp or Overload, not switching between them much), you can drop Miranda easily. Samara/Grunt worked very well on the derelict reaper, as Area Reave is awesome against husk groups, and Grunt's charge, which is usually annoying (since it makes him a sitting duck) just splatters husks left and right. Tali/Legion worked well for Legion's loyalty mission; Tali isn't nearly as tough as Grunt, but being able to hack a couple geth, then lay out Area Overloads and Exploding drones in the middle of them is quite nice. Changing my advanced training to Squad AP ammo for the derelict reaper and Legion loyalty mission was also helpful; with no barriers to be seen, the bonus to armor and health was worthwhile. Bringing along Zaeed instead of Tali would also work for the Legion mission, but Tali's drones, hacking and shield drain combined with my overload meant we were rarely shooting shields anyway, so AP ammo and Disruptor ammo were roughly equivalent. ::::Anyway, those are my thoughts. Hope it helps someone. In summation: Starting an Insanity playthrough with an imported level 3 Sentinel, even with the bonuses for having beaten ME2 before, is *really* hard, particularly on collector-centric levels, up until you finish the collector ship mission. After that, with the Tempest, Viper, hard shields, and tech/biotic cooldown boosts, it becomes much easier. I've only died two or three times after the collector ship; prior to and during the collector ship mission I must have died at least 50 times, if not more. ShadowRanger 17:00, March 15, 2010 (UTC) Good to know. I'm about to start my Sentinel (maybe not on Insanity, but certainly not Casual either) and your advice should help a bunch. Thanks for taking the time to type it all out. Derint 23:17, March 15, 2010 (UTC) Power vs assault armor and about passive There's one thing that I didn't see mentioned, and I would like confirmation from other. I think this should made its way to the guide. This is what I think is true: Tech armor improve shield upon "base" shield which remain constant throughout the game. The aftermatch charge from assault armor, however, works on total shield. Here's a scenario: Base shield is 200, shield upgrade 50% -> total shield without tech armor is 300. Power armor increases by 100% base -> 500 shield with power armor. Improved 200 shield. Assault armor increase by 75% base -> 450 shield with assault on and 150 (50% of total 300) instantly recharged, so assault gives total 300 shield (150 on + 150 instant recharge). This recharge does not trigger redudant shield generator afaik. In term of survivability and exploding damage, assault wins hand down, which is crucial on colector missions hardcore/insanity. Passive is another matter that I disagree: both evolved versions are not equal: guardian is far superior than raider. Here's the argument: Raider offers 15% power damage. This is a static number (e.g. warps deal 100 damage will be 115 damage) and thus, increases DPS by 15%. Guardian offers 10% CD reduce. This is not a "real" number, considering bio/tech upgrade 20% CD reduce and another 20% from passive, your CD is standing as 60% before applying this 10%, so it is in fact, 16.67% CD reduce aka an increase of 16.67% DPS (= 10% / 60%). 5% extra health is icy over the top. The benefit could only be used to the fullest if you cast spell as soon as available, which is what Sentinel excels at (with tech armor). Also CD reduce helps with emergency tech armor activation when things get messy. I think the guide should be update with Guardian being the primary passive evolve and Power armor for non-husk missions and Assault for husk-y mission. Now if only someone figures out how to unlock warps at throw lv 1 and my Sentinel will be complete. Condensing Defenses In the bonus powers section I condensed the defenses into one section. I have seen this done elsewhere; is this acceptable? :No it isn't. Each power/talent is to have its own headline to describe what benefits it provides and how best to use it. If they are all cramed together, it becomes hard to destinguish was benefits a certain power provides and its advantages. That reminds me, I need to fix something. Lancer1289 05:08, August 9, 2010 (UTC) :Note there is an exception for the Soldier Guide (Mass Effect 2) in that all three defensive powers are combined. This was done for the fact that soldiers gain no bonuses from any of the three and putting them apart was only about one or two sentence different in each of the entries. Unlike the rest of the guides, where different things get bonuses because of a class' natural tech/biotic talents, to which the soldier has none. Lancer1289 05:22, August 9, 2010 (UTC) ::I see; my apologies. I did look at the MOS, but did not see anything addressing the combination of similar talents. Flippantelf 14:12, August 9, 2010 (UTC) Barrier/Geth Shield Boost I recently rewrote these sections in order to include more information in a more organized, grammatically correct paragraph. While doing so I encountered two statements with which I disagreed: one being that the defensive powers are more useful on higher difficulties, and the other being that the defensive powers are better for recharging shields in the midst of battle than Tech Armor. *I think that the defensive powers are less effective on higher difficulties because it takes less time for enemies to strip them, and in my opinion their cooldown is too long to make reapplying them in battle worth it. *I think that Tech Armor should be preferable for an in-battle emergency shield recharge because it is better than the other defensive powers with the same cooldown. The original author argued that using the defensive powers was preferable because they have a time limit, but in my experience the pace of battle makes this time limit a moot point. While I went ahead and changed these points in my revision (an arrogant action, and one for which I apologize), I wanted to state my reasons here and give others a chance to voice their opinions so that this article can reflect the majority opinion rather than just mine. Flippantelf 15:16, August 9, 2010 (UTC) :If something on any page is incorrect or you disagree with something then it is fine to change, but major changes like this are usually brought up on the talk page first so people can discuss it before it gets changed. Also note that these guides are supposed to reflect what is good about a power, not what is bad, unless noting that it is redundant, or putting tips in for another power, which don't go there. "Shield recharging during battle should always be done with tech armor, as doing so is a significant time investment for either and tech armor is superior." That belongs in the tech armor section and should be reworded along the lines of something like this "becuase tech armor is better at recharging shields during battle, it can be a better alternative to selecting a defensive bonus power like barrier". Some people, like myself, do and have found defensive powers useful on higher difficulties, I find barrier itself to be particularly effective, however I have changed it to reflect your views as well. Again theses guides are supposed to be what is good, not bad, which the way your revision was formatted, made it out to seem that barrier and GSB were bad powers, which always isn't the case. Lancer1289 16:23, August 9, 2010 (UTC) ::Noted. I also noticed that you de-capitalized the class and powers: I'll keep that in mind as well. Flippantelf 16:30, August 9, 2010 (UTC)